Network-based services exist that allow customers to purchase and utilize virtual machine instances on a permanent or as-needed basis. In addition to virtual machine instances, these services typically allow customers to purchase and utilize other types of computing resources. For example, customers might be permitted to purchase and utilize data storage resources, database resources, networking resources, and other types of computing resources (which may be referred to herein as “resources”).
Managing network-based services such as those described above can be extremely complex. At least some of this complexity is attributable to the large number of computing resources that typically exist in such a service at any given time. For example, some network-based services might utilize dozens of geographically dispersed data centers, hundreds of thousands or even millions of server computers and virtual machine instances, along with large numbers of networking components, software programs, and other types of resources. When large numbers of resources such as these are utilized by a network service in this way, it can be very difficult for a customer or system administrator to obtain information regarding a particular resource, or resources. This may be caused, at least in part, by the fact that a large number of disparate systems and/or services might be utilized to collect and/or maintain information describing the operational status of resources, the configuration of the resources, the location of the resources, and/or other types of data about the resources in a distributed execution environment.
The disclosure made herein is presented with respect to these and other considerations.